


It Might Be Something

by mikaylamazing



Category: Andi Mack (TV)
Genre: Angst, Confessions, Fluff, M/M, Post-Finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-02
Updated: 2019-08-02
Packaged: 2020-07-29 13:17:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20082841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mikaylamazing/pseuds/mikaylamazing
Summary: They held hands. They held hands and smiled at each other, and TJ’s sure he’s supposed to know what it all meant, but he honestly has no clue. Maybe it didn’t mean anything, and TJ is just overreacting. Afterall, he has no experience with… this. Cyrus is a nice guy to literally everyone, maybe this is just a thing that he does. TJ doesn’t like the feeling that comes over him when he considers that, but the only other option is… That. And TJ isn’t sure if he’s ready for That yet.--or a slightly angsty post-finale continuation in which TJ can't say the g-word and comes up with a dumb plan to deal with it





	It Might Be Something

**Author's Note:**

> ngl, i cried writing this. i wanted to write something a little less sure and easy and 3600 words later here we are  
you can send me fic prompts at theloniousjaggerkippen.tumblr.com

It’s been three days since Andi’s party. The very next day was pretty normal by TJ’s standards, at least in the beginning. A Sunday where he woke up the same as he did every day, got dressed and brushed his teeth before heading downstairs for breakfast. He talked to his mom for a bit before retreating back to his room, trying to decide what to do for the rest of the day. He was too tired to go anywhere besides the comfort of his own bed, still a little overwhelmed by the chaos and bright lights of the party. And that other thing…

That thing that TJ’s been thinking about nonstop since it happened, but he still can’t bring himself to put into words, even in his head. He can handle it in small, dissected parts. Cyrus sat next to him on the bench outside. That’s fine. They talked about how Kira is a mean person. That’s more than fine; a weight off his chest, really. After way less coercing than has ever been tried with him, TJ told Cyrus his name. Fine, because it would have to happen eventually since they’re friends (he’s been very adamantly ignoring the little voice in the back of his head saying he went fourteen years without ever telling a single person). And then they exchanged some words that didn’t really sound like they meant anything, but they felt like the beginnings of a heart attack for TJ.

He’d breathed in, thinking over and over again about how to rationalize the next part, but it never made a difference. They held hands. They held hands and smiled at each other, and TJ’s sure he’s _supposed _to know what it all meant, but he honestly has no clue. Maybe it didn’t mean anything, and TJ is just overreacting. Afterall, he has no experience with… this. Cyrus is a nice guy to literally everyone, maybe this is just a thing that he does. TJ doesn’t like the feeling that comes over him when he considers that, but the only other option is… That. And TJ isn’t sure if he’s ready for That yet.

It’s not like he can ask anybody about it. He can’t even say any of it out loud, and the only person he’d really want to talk to is the one person he can’t in this situation. TJ doesn’t like admitting when he’s scared, but all things considered, it comes relatively easy this time around. He’s scared and he has no idea what to do.

He considers typing the question into the google search bar, but quickly becomes panicked about things he knows will never happen. Like his parents going through the search history on his phone, despite the fact that they’ve literally never done that before. Or maybe his phone is bugged and there’s someone who can see what’s on his screen at all times and they’ll tell everyone he’s… you know. That. It’s too risky, he’d decided, and instead watched something on tv to get his mind off of things, only it didn’t really work all that well because he picked up his phone every five minutes, opening his messages and tapping next to the little icon with Cyrus’s face in it.

He’d type a few words, maybe even a sentence, before changing his mind, and putting his phone back, facedown on his bed. Eventually, he started covering it with a pillow, hoping the principle of ‘out of sight, out of mind’ would work its magic. (It didn’t). So when the show finally ended, he suddenly felt like he was stuck with no choice but to finally press send on whatever he had down.

_hey :)_

And if he was expected to do any better than that, he couldn’t possibly be to blame. He’d been sure that he’d set the bar unfathomably low for anything not related to sports. Cyrus responded within five minutes, but not immediately after TJ pressed send, and TJ never thought he’d be in a place where he’s analyzing how long it takes for someone to respond to him.

_Hey __😊__ What’s up? _

The reply was simple and straightforward enough, which, for the first time in the history of TJ’s life, was the exact opposite of what he wanted. If he couldn’t talk it out by himself in his room, he knew there was no way he could bring up anything with Cyrus. Cyrus needed to make the first move to talk about it if any progress was going to be made, but they just went on with normal conversation, asking each other about their day, and talking about how it might snow later in the week.

So TJ took that as a sign. They weren’t talking about this.

On the second day, Cyrus asked him to hang out. He couldn’t bring himself to lie and say he was busy because he really had nothing to do. He was pretty sure his mom was going to start begging him to leave the house if he didn’t just go. The fact that he stayed home for the entirety of the day before was already enough of an anomaly. He didn’t need his family to be jumping at him, asking what’s wrong, especially not Amber.

So he walked to Cyrus’s house and they hung out. Or they sat on the same couch while they watched a movie, not really talking or interacting in any way, and then TJ faked getting a text and said he had to leave. Cyrus might’ve looked disappointed, or maybe unaffected. TJ wouldn’t know because he tried his best to avoid even looking at Cyrus’s face. When they said their goodbyes, TJ’s body acted on its own accord and lurched forward in what would’ve been a hug if he extended his arms. Instead, they stayed frozen at his sides as he stumbled right into Cyrus who, thankfully, didn’t fall. Disaster after unmitigated disaster, TJ decided to say goodbye with an awkwardly formal handshake, nodding his head jerkily and stepping out of the house.

Now it’s day three and despite TJ thinking the pressure was off, that nothing had to change, it was too late. Things were different. He was already aware of his… situation and pretending that nothing ever happened wasn’t going to make his feelings go away. So he does what he’s sure any normal person would do. He avoids Cyrus. It isn’t hard to pull off in that the end of the semester means they don’t have to see each other at school every day. It _is _hard to pull off in that TJ misses talking to Cyrus like five minutes after he decides to ignore him.

It’s hard having only one really close friend, and it’s even harder now that he doesn’t at least have Kira to waste some of his time. But he figures he’ll do this now, and when they see each other again at the start of the new semester, enough time will have gone by for things to at least seem like they’ve gone back to normal. He ignores just how long that’ll be. He’s been ignoring a lot lately. He sends a text to Cyrus telling him he’s gonna be busy all week and hopes it’s not as suspicious-sounding as it actually is.

The thing is, Shadyside is a relatively small place where he is almost definitely bound to run into Cyrus sooner or later, but TJ can’t spend the entirety of the break without going out and doing something, even if it is just going to the park to play basketball by himself. He lasts about an hour before walking past his parents in the living room.

“I’ll be home before dinner.”

He’s not really sure where he’s going or what he’s doing – he totally left his basketball in his room – but just the walk in the fresh air is enough to make him feel a little better. TJ tries to clear his mind the best he can, but it seems nothing can completely stop him from thinking about Cyrus. He wonders how long it’ll be before he can go longer than five minutes without remembering his eyes, or his smile, or his laugh, or the softness of his hands…

TJ shakes his head trying to physically rid his mind of the thoughts, or at least make them a little less… you know. But it’s no use. The more he tries not to think about it, the more he thinks about it. He decides that as long as no one else knows about how he feels, it’s mostly okay. TJ is so caught up in his own thoughts that he doesn’t notice he’s about to run into somebody until they’re ten inches away from him. It’s not the last person he wanted to run into, but it’s pretty close.

“TJ?” Andi asks, like she hasn’t seen him in decades despite the fact that he was just at her party.

“Hi.”

“Cyrus said you were busy today,” she says, and it’s not a question, accusation lacing her tone. TJ can feel the earth begin to crumble under his feet as he scrambles for an excuse. This is only the second time he’s ever interacted with her in a significant way and he’d prefer to keep her on his good side, but he can feel her eyes piercing into him.

“Uh, yeah! I am. Just running errands for my parents,” he says with a smile plastered onto his face, but he’s a bad actor and he knows it. Andi raises her eyebrows at him, and he makes a run for it.

“I’d really like to stay and chat, but I’ve got a thing to pick up,” he looks at his nonexistent watch, “now. Sorry.” He’s not watching where he’s going (again) and nearly runs into a fire hydrant. He corrects his step and never looks back.

When TJ gets back home later in the day, he’s exhausted despite not having done anything except hide behind trees and look over his shoulder a lot. He spends a moment coping with the fact that this will be the rest of his break.

On day four, he _actually _has to run errands for his parents, suddenly regretting all of his actions from the day before now that he doesn’t have a choice. He’s cautious; taking the long way for everything, avoiding main roads if he can manage. In the end, nothing happens, and he’s almost disappointed in how uneventful the day has been until he enters his own house, his place…

“Oh, TJ, you’re back. I hope you don’t mind, but I let your friend inside,” his father says, as if he didn’t just completely betray TJ’s trust forever. She doesn’t need to turn around for TJ to feel judged, but when she does, he’s catapulted back to a time when she couldn’t stand to be in the same room as him.

“Buffy, what are you doing here?” he asks in as sweet a tone as he can manage. She’s about two seconds away from glaring him to death.

“Just came to check up on my dear friend, TJ.” Her smile is more grimace-like than anything. For the second time this week, TJ is not ashamed to admit that he’s scared. She looks like she’s daring him to say something snarky, to push her to say something he’d rather leave unsaid.

“Let’s talk outside?” he suggests more than tells. At this point, he’s worked too hard to get Buffy to just tolerate his existence, and he’s not looking to erase all of his progress. She doesn’t respond, just leads the way back to the front door. As soon as it closes, she turns around, fury radiating from every inch of her. She doesn’t even take a moment to ease into the conversation.

“What is wrong with you?”

“How did you find out where I live?” Buffy rolls her eyes at him, clearly not here for anything except getting answers to questions she asks, not the other way around.

“Why are you being mean to Cyrus?” she asks instead, but TJ doesn’t like the particular wording of that question.

“I’m not being mean to Cyrus! I could never be mean to Cyrus! What would make you even ask that?” A lot of crazy things have happened in the past few months of his life, but this was an accusation he never could’ve seen coming.

“You told him you were ‘busy’.”

“I _am _busy. I-”

“You can stop lying, TJ. Andi already told us that she saw you yesterday.” TJ’s blood freezes in his veins. His heart stops beating for a moment.

“’Us’? As in you and Cyrus?” he asks, wondering just how often he’s been a topic of conversation between the three of them since the party. But Buffy still isn’t wavering, holding her eyes steady with his.

“Yeah, we tell each other everything. Always have and always will,” she says strongly, making TJ feel smaller and smaller with every word. When he doesn’t say anything, just standing with his mouth gaping, she continues.

“He told us about how you went over a few days ago. That you were weird the whole time and then made up some fake excuse to leave early.”

“It wasn’t fake, I had to-”

“He also said you’re an incredibly bad liar, which I also have experience with.” She keeps backing him into another corner that he can’t talk his way out of, so he resigns himself to the inevitable with a heavy sigh.

“So I guess he told you guys about what happened at the party?” For the first time that conversation, Buffy’s eyes go from anger to something else. TJ isn’t sure what it is.

“No.”

“No? I thought you just said that you tell each other everything.”

“I knew something was up because he was… different after. He said he wasn’t ready to talk about it yet. But when he is…” TJ thought about that for a moment. Maybe Cyrus was going through the same things he was. All alone, just like he was.

“Don’t think so hard, you might strain something,” Buffy says. It’s just derisive enough to bring him back from his thoughts. “Please just talk to him. You know that whatever you have to say isn’t that bad and that he’ll care about you no matter what, right?” TJ lets out the breath he’s been holding and nods, more to himself than to Buffy. He still can’t think of actual words to say, but she saves him from himself.

“I never thought I’d say this, but I’m counting on you to make things right. Please, _please _don’t let me down,” she pleads with him.

“No pressure, right?” She glares at him again and he laughs. At least that’ll never change.

“Okay, okay. I promise not to ruin everything.”

“I have got to start setting higher standards for you,” she sighs, shaking her head in mock disapproval, beginning to head out.

“Hey, Buffy?” She turns around slowly, a cautious look on her face, like he’s getting ready to say something dumb.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he promises. And that’s a big promise if her smile is anything to go by. He needs to start planning. Now.

TJ goes back to his room for twenty minutes, just pacing around, practicing words he definitely already knows how to say, and looking up ways to tell someone you… like them even though you’re pretty sure they already know, and you also have the feeling they probably like you too. Easy stuff, no big, committed to memory.

It all goes out the window when TJ gets to Cyrus’s house. Speaking of windows…

He gathered up tiny pebbles on his walk over. Because throwing them at the window of your crush is totally sweet, and not played out at all in TJ’s mind. It only takes two throws for the curtains to open up. When Cyrus sees that it’s him, his eyebrows shoot upwards. He mouths something that TJ can’t understand and struggles to open the window for ten whole seconds. And yeah, maybe TJ should’ve thought through that part more. When he finally pushes the glass up, he’s slightly out of breath.

“What are you doing?” Cyrus finally asks, a look on his face that’s a cross happiness and apprehension.

“Being like all the teen heartthrobs in the movies? How am I doing?”

“You couldn’t have just called? Or texted?” Cyrus questions, and while it’s said with a healthy dose of skepticism, he’s also smiling, which is a good sign. A great sign. The best sign.

“No. Absolutely not,” TJ shouts back with his only genuine smile since the party. It feels nice. “Get out here!”

“Okay, okay! Just give me a second.”

TJ waits patiently, but he already feels better than he did just ten minutes ago. Cyrus tends to have that effect on him. TJ is smiling to himself like a fool, and somehow it gets even bigger when he sees Cyrus step out of his house, bundled up in a hat and scarf.

“This weather is ridiculous. Aren’t you cold?” Cyrus asks, nearly tripping over his own feet as he makes his way towards TJ, and that’s just…

“I think I’ll be okay,” TJ says shakily, despite the fact that ‘okay’ is definitely not the word he’d use to describe himself right now. He was perfectly fine when Cyrus was in his house, but now he’s starting to choke? TJ will never understand himself. He takes his millionth deep breath of the day, the frigid air poking at his lungs like needles. _It’s now or never. You _have _to do this now. _

“So, I’m sure there’s a reason to this whole-”

“I’m gay.” And there. Now it’s out in the open. The thing he couldn’t even admit to himself in his thoughts has now been shared with a real, living person. And it just happens to be the boy he has a huge crush on. Everything is fine until it’s been three whole seconds and Cyrus hasn’t said anything. TJ starts to panic, and honestly, he’s been doing so much of that he thinks he should be getting paid for it.

“At least, I think I am. I don’t really know. I hadn’t really thought about until like, a few weeks ago. I’m sorry if this is weird, I just didn’t know how else to start without chickening out-”

“TJ. It’s not weird. I just wasn’t really expecting it.” TJ considers that. What it could mean? That TJ doesn’t _seem _gay? That Cyrus has never even considered that he might be, and therefore hasn’t thought about him that way at all.

“Hey, you can stop freaking out,” Cyrus says, this time bringing his hand up to touch TJ’s arm. If Cyrus assumed that was supposed to help him stop ‘freaking out’, it has the opposite effect. TJ’s heart feels like it’s about to crawl up his throat.

“This wasn’t a negative reaction. Just a surprised one. After the days of radio silence, I didn’t think we’d get to this part. Which would’ve been fine! I didn’t mind. I love being your friend… It’s just that now-”

“You can’t stop thinking about being… something else?” TJ says hopefully, looking at Cyrus’s hand and then the center of his face, unable to meet his eyes. Cyrus squeezes his arm lightly.

“Yeah,” he whispers back, moving his hand to intertwine their fingers, the same way they did at the party.

“Any idea what that ‘something else’ is?” TJ asks, still feeling like he’s walking over extremely thin ice. Cyrus contemplates that before settling with a slightly confused, but content look.

“Not really. I never even thought about the fact that the boy I like might like me back. I guess I haven’t gotten this far ahead. I don’t really know how anything works, and I haven’t even told my parents about any of this.” TJ nods his head in understanding. He just came out for the first time ever, to one person. He doesn’t know how he would reintroduce Cyrus to his family as something other than a friend. Not yet anyway.

“I’m scared,” TJ admits out loud for the first time. Against his will, a single tear slides down his cheek. Cyrus is quick to wipe it away

“It’s okay to be scared. But we don’t have to do anything until we’re ready. I’ll wait with you.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“But I want to. I care about you. And I don’t think anything is gonna change that.” TJ can’t help the surge of emotion that washes over him as he brings Cyrus in for a long overdue hug.

“I’m sorry I’ve been so weird,” he mumbles into Cyrus’s shoulder, feeling like his legs are going to fall out from under him any second.

“You never need to apologize to me for being weird. Ever.” When TJ pulls back Cyrus is smiling at him, still holding him at arm’s length. TJ laughs with him.

“We might not have it all figured out right now, but what I do know is that I’m gay and I like you,” Cyrus says, breathing with relief at finally getting those specific words out. TJ nearly tears up again.

“I’m gay and I like you _a lot_.” TJ declares, the words coming out easier the second time around. Cyrus rolls his eyes.

“Must everything be a competition for you?”

“Yeah, I think so.” TJ tightens his fingers, just to remind himself that Cyrus is here and they’re holding hands _for the second time. _It’s a lot for him to take in.

“Come on, let’s get inside before we start developing frostbite. We can make hot chocolate.” So they make hot chocolate, only narrowly avoiding making a huge mess with Cyrus in charge. They sit in the living room and watch the movie they were both too distracted to pay attention to last time. Fifteen minutes in, when they’ve both drained their mugs and are snuggled up under a blanket, Cyrus takes TJ’s hand again.

It’s enough for right now.

It’s _perfect _for right now.


End file.
